


Metamorphosis

by Assassin_J



Category: Assassin's Creed, [PROTOTYPE]
Genre: Biology, Crack Treated Seriously, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Inspired By Tumblr, M/M, ProtoCreed, Steven Universe References, not mpreg, thanks kel you're gr9
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2018-12-22 01:20:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11956713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Assassin_J/pseuds/Assassin_J
Summary: A change in the form and often habits of an animal during normal development after the embryonic stage. Metamorphosis includes, in insects, the transformation of a maggot into an adult fly and a caterpillar into a butterfly and, in amphibians, the changing of a tadpole into a frog.- The American Heritage Science Dictionarynoodle babies? make our dreams come true? alex and desmond procreate, but not in a mammalian manner.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> insp: [this](https://romulanale.tumblr.com/post/164766069712/v-caedis-va-kaydeekrunk-hebizuki-sip-sip) and [this](http://birbspertbrre.tumblr.com/post/164811746097/lornagonigall-raattles-hahahahahahahahahahaha)

Alex was itchy.

Desmond hadn't thought that was possible.

"You don't feel pain, right?"

"No," Alex answered, scratching at his arm for the thirteenth time in three minutes.

"So how do you feel itches?"

"Fuck if I know," Alex said. "Lots of my shit is still a mystery to me." He stood up abruptly and looked around the room.

"What'cha need baby?"

"Baby, yes, yes, exactly," Alex muttered with a vague nod. "Do we... have a basket, or really big bowl or similar?" He was still scratching that one spot on his arm and also a spot on his chest too now.

"Uh, I think in the top cupboard." Desmond went to the kitchen. "Any particular reason?"

Alex grunted a frustrated sound. "Explain later. Just get it. Put your shirt in it."

Tall-ass Desmond had already grabbed a punch bowl from up high. "My shirt? What?"

"I don't fucking know, just do it!" Alex manhandled Desmond's shirt off him and arranged the fabric to messily line the container.

Unable to contest being de-shirted, Desmond spluttered in confusion and wrapped his arms around his now bare chest. "Ohmygod, dude, seriously, do you need medication or something?"

Alex was leaning over the bowl and scratching feverishly at his arms again. He didn't have his claws out but still the biomass was being torn to shreds. Small ribbons of it fell into the bowl as Desmond watched with growing concern.

"Dude, seriously," Desmond said again, trying to stop Alex's scratching. "You're hurting yourself!"

Alex wriggled out of his grasp and now was basically pulling huge handfuls of himself out and adding it to the pile.

The pile was squirming, Desmond noticed. Not knowing what else to do, he tried picking up some of it to stick it back on Alex. But the ribbons of black-and-red matter were slick with ooze and he couldn't get a hold on them.

"They won't go back," Alex said wearily, for he knew what Desmond was attempting. "They needed out. They _demanded_ out."

"Um. What the fuck?"

"It's.... part of the process. The cycle." Alex seemed a little calmer now, or at least in less physical distress. He exhaled heavily and sunk into a chair. "Put some water. They need water. They need to stay wet."

"You're not making any sense."

"Water," Alex said again. "Then I'll try and explain."

* * *

Desmond filled the bowl about half-full with lukewarm tap water and set it carefully back on the table. Then he went and got another shirt on before coming back to Alex. "Okay, what the fuck just happened? Are you sick? Why did my shirt have to get involved?"

Alex let out a long sigh. "My fucking body decided we're mates."

Desmond processed this for a moment. "...Well, we are, right? Though that's not the first word I'd pick to describe it."

With a grunt Alex tossed his head, making his hair flip to one side. "We're mates. And we're stable together. So it decided to make _offspring_ for us."

Desmond covered his mouth and glanced over to the bowl. "Th- _this_ is how you reproduce?"

"Apparently, yes."

Desmond stepped a little closer to get another look at the soaking biomass strands. "Really?"

"Have I ever pranked you before in my goddamn life?"

"Okay, okay... But still, fuck. This is bizarre."

"No, not really." Alex got up and came to stand by his side. "Not any more bizarre than any other biological process."

The strands were each about the size of a spaghetti noodle, but swimming around with clumsy undulating motions in a way that spagetti noodles definitely didn't.

Alex took hold of Desmond's hand slowly. "Sorry I couldn't give you more warning. I didn't know quite what was happening either."

Desmond looked at him. "You still haven't explained why my shirt was necessary."

"Needed something with your scent? To comfort them?" Alex guessed.

Desmond gave a tiny laugh. "Fair enough, yeah." He looked back at the bowl. "So... time to go shop for an aquarium, huh?"

"What?"

"Well they're kinda crowded in this bowl. We can watch 'em swim around better in a big tank-"

"They're not pets, Desmond! They're our _offspring!_ "

Desmond wasn't entirely sure that the creatures in the bowl had any genetic relation to himself, but that was an issue to raise another time, he decided. "Okay, they're our offspring, yes, but look, if our offspring are swimmy eel things, then we can't exactly put 'em in a crib or-"

"This is just the larval stage!"

"Wait, what?"


	2. noodles 2 electric boogaloo

Desmond had to sit down and get a glass of ice water in order to keep himself collected. "Larval stage," he kept saying, in between sips.

Every time he said that, Alex responded with, "Yes."

After about seven repetitions of this back-and-forth, Alex broke the combo. "Look, it's unexpected for me as well."

"I have sooo many goddamn questions," Desmond said, rubbing his forehead.

"I'll answer what I can," Alex said, shrugging.

Desmond chugged the rest of his water and then set the glass down definitively. "Kay, first off, you're a virus, not a frickin' insect, so why did you have larvas?"

Alex took a few moments to gather an answer, his brows creasing as he sorted through the info-fragments he had deduced so far.

"I mean, you weren't ever like this, right?" Desmond gestured at the bowl again.

"No, I wasn't. They're taking an evolutionary step. For whatever reason." Alex leaned in closer to watch the noodles splashing about. "Our offspring are impressive."

"It's impressive how many there are," Desmond said. He tried a few times to count them but kept losing track. They were moving around too much, and it wasn't easy to tell them apart. "Uh. They're eating my shirt. What do we feed them?"

"Shirt probably works for now," Alex said after a moment. "Guess they're using the plant fibers, and the keratin sloughed off from your skin."

"God, that just raises even more questions. And it was one of my favorite shirts, too."

Alex smiled across the bowl at Desmond. "There's forty-four. Could tell you were wondering."

Desmond blanched. "Urr. Raising forty-four kids?"

"Oop." Alex let out a laugh. "Forty-three. One of them just consumed another."

"What the shit?!" Desmond leaned over the bowl with a panicked look on his face. The noodles were writhing more vigorously now, a miniature sea of violence. "Stop that, you guys!"

"Hey, you just said you couldn't raise forty-four kids. It's survival of the fittest, baby." 

"Ugh." Desmond sat back down heavily. "First my boyfriend gives surprise birth to noodle babies, and now the noodle babies are frickin' Hunger Games-ing it out. This is shaping up to be one hell of a day."

"Woah, hello!" Alex held out a hand to support one of the noodles that was creeping up over the edge of the bowl. "My, getting large already." He stroked the noodle as one would a cat's head.

Someone knocked on the door. Wearily, Desmond got up and opened it. It was the Schut Cunninghams, all outfitted for martial arts.

"Ayy, Des-man!" Arend gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder. "You were supposed to come meet us in the gym for practice this morning. Don't tell me you forgot?"

"Uhh, shit. Something came up."

"What kinda something?" Harlan asked.

"Alex, um." Desmond's mouth felt suddenly dry. "Had babies?"

Arend guffawed. "What kind of fake-ass excuse is that?"

"Go look if you don't believe me!" Desmond tossed a hand behind him.

"Yes, come look," Alex called out, sounding giddy. "Come and look at their greatness!"

Arend and Harlan exchanged a glance and then made their way to the kitchen. "Holy hell," Harlan said.

"You see, I wasn't kidding," said Desmond, who'd followed them. "Alex fuckin' produced some offspring. Forty-four of them to be exact."

"We're down to thirty-nine now," Alex said.

"Yeah, apparently they're gonna consume each other until at the end we have the One Child To Rule Them All."

"This is some weird shit," Arend said.

"Yes." Desmond got himself another drink: a beer this time. "So you can forgive me for missing practice."

 

* * *

 

The consuming frenzy soon died down, and they were left with an even twenty noodle babies, each one a good two-and-a-half inches or so thick, and in varying lengths. Alex said they looked uncomfortable in the bowl now that they were larger, so he transferred them into a cardboard box that their fridgerator had come in.

"We still need to keep them moist," Alex said, "until they finish developing a hardened outer layer."

"You mean... skin?"

"...Maybe. Or maybe scales. I don't know."

Desmond, forcing himself to stay outwardly calm, stepped away and came back a couple minutes later with a spray bottle, which he started spritzing over the noodles. With his other hand he beckoned Alex over and pulled him close for a little kiss.

Alex was pleased. To tell the truth, he'd been scared from Desmond's behavior this morning, scared that this involuntary act of his biology was going to drive the human away.

As their lips broke apart, Desmond spoke softly. "So, just so you know, I _am_ gonna do my best to love and support the kids. Even though they're kinda creeping me out."

"You get creeped out rather easily, for someone who deals with blood and death for a living."

"Don't make me turn this sprayer on you," Desmond said.

Alex pulled away hastily.

"Joking, joking!" Desmond beckoned him back into a hug. "Sorry bae, I forget you're like, autistic and stuff."

Alex hummed as Desmond rubbed his shoulder.

"So, what do you like for names?" Desmond asked.

"....I don't know."

"Should we just go like A, B, C, D, et cetera? Alan, Bob, Chuck, Darren-"

"Those are all shit."

"Well fine, you think of names then."

"Fine, I will. Eventually." Alex slipped out of Desmond's grasp and went to the kitchen, coming back with a package of ground turkey. He formed a claw and tore the package open over the noodle box, letting the meat rain down in a loose pile.

"Oh shit damn, they like that!" Desmond hooted enthusiastically as the noodles all squirmed close to get facefuls of the stuff. Or maybe "facefuls" wasn't the right word, as they didn't seem to have actual faces, not yet at least. Desmond could see a couple little sunken spots on one end of each noodle, right above the place that opened to suck in food, and he guessed those must be rudimentary eyes, or maybe nostrils. But other than that, they were just featureless, except for the random swirls of red in among the black.

They were noisy eaters, slurping and snarfing, making quick work of the pound of turkey.

"Hungry boys," Desmond commented.

"Desmond, they won't have gender identities yet. Not even sure they have a self-identity at all right now. Probably just pure instinct."

"Thirsty boys," Desmond said, giving the noodles a few more sprays of water.


	3. and Steven!

Dana came by a little later. "What's going on? I heard someone say Alex like, gave birth?" She looked skeptical, but less so than you would've thought.

"Gave birth outta his arms and chest, yeah. Come see, it's a real trip." Desmond chortled and let her in. "Yo Alex, your sister's here to see her niblings!"

Dana's eyes bugged out as soon as the box-full-o-babies came into her view. "Oh my god they're so big, what the fuck!" she cried out, hands over her gaping mouth. But it was said in an excited tone rather than a fearful one. She leaned onto Alex's shoulder (he was seated in a chair beside the box) and asked him, "They were really only born this morning?"

"Yeah," Alex said simply.

"You're not freaked out," Desmond observed of Dana.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Well I never expected he'd make a human kid, globviously. Though I'd've thought it'd be something more microscopic to start with. Or maybe a cantaloupe-sized egg fulla biomass, I dunno. I had a few different ideas."

"Dana's seen a lot of shit, especially regarding bio-engineering," Alex said, looking up to Desmond. "Takes more than some larva niblings to rattle her." He grinned at Dana.

"What does rattle me," Dana said, beginning to shake his shoulder as vigorously as she could to the rhythm of her sentence, "is that you never- fucking- told me- you were- pregnant!"

"I- literally- didn't- know," Alex said between shakes. "Not until they were already out."

Dana smacked his arm. "That sounds bullshit but whatever."

They sat for a while and watched the noodles. Some of them were chewing busily on the cardboard, while others preferred to eat the dry grass and leaves Desmond had brought in from outside (his rationale being that they should probably have a more varied diet than just shirts and meat).

"No names yet?" Dana asked, knowing the answer already.

Desmond shook his head. "How would we even keep track of who's who?"

"I can tell them apart perfectly well," Alex said, a little indignant. He pointed into the box. "For example, this one is the longest." He pointed to a different one. "The second longest." He pointed out a third one. "The thickest." He pointed to a fourth one. "The fastest, they have a distinctive red swirl on the posterior end."

"Okay, I get the picture," Desmond said. "I'm not good at telling them apart, though. Maybe we could give 'em little collars with tags. Noodle One, Noodle Two, etc."

"I told you they're _not pets!_ "

William came by, for the third time that day between his Assassiny duties. He seemed at turns fascinated and disconcerted by the offspring. After Dana made a remark about him being a grandfather now, he frowned thoughtfully and rubbed his chin.

"Sorry, Dad," Desmond said. "Can't avoid the truth."

"But how true is it, I wonder?" William said. "Didn't you say that they split off from Alex? Making them essentially small clones of him?"

"They are not clones," Alex said, getting up. "Their differences from me should be obvious to even a layperson. For one thing, they require water. And they didn't merely split off like a plant cutting or a cell dividing; they--" He strugged for words, and made gestures at his chest, reënacting the scene from that morning.

"They were born," Desmond provided, putting an arm around Alex's neck.

"Erh. Sure, that works," Alex said.

"So yeah, they're my kids too, Dad, making you a grampa. He says so and I believe him. Like, I don't wanna get too TMI here, but there's plenty ways my body and his have been intertwined."

Alex nodded with a smile. "Yes, yes, I think I've been storing up his genetic material without knowing it, and-"

William held up a hand. "Fine, let's drop the topic for now."

 

* * *

 

Alex left the apartment briefly to grab a Templar for his dinner. When he returned it was past eight p.m. and Desmond was sipping another beer and watching Jeopardy.

"This process is the first step of cell division."

"Oh, oh, I know this!" Desmond grinned. "What is _protophase_."

"Prophase," Alex said.

A contestant on the show buzzed in. "What is mitosis, Alex."

The "eh-eh" incorrect sound played.

"At least you were way closer than she was," Alex (the virus not the game show host) said, sliding into the couch beside Desmond.

Desmond turned the volume down a little. "You're not mad I'm watching TV instead of paying full attention to the babies?"

"Nah. Good idea, actually."

"Yeah," Desmond said, "at least this is educational, not like some Duck Dynasty shit that'd rot their lil brains."

Alex chuckled. "I highly doubt they understand much language at this stage. But a wide variety of sounds will help grow their sensory systems."

Desmond raised his beer bottle. "Cheers to me, helping my kids get smart."

"He was the last reigning monarch of Ethiopia." **bzz** "James?"

"Who is Haile Selassie."

 **eh-eh** "I'm sorry that's incorrect." **bzz** "Ana?"

"Who is Amha Selassie." **ding!**

"They are actually watching it, ya know," Desmond said, gesturing at the (more-than-halfway-eaten) box. The noodles were all gathered in the front of it, their little faces pointed at the bright screen. "I was surprised at first, since they didn't seem to really have eyes."

"Not complex eyes like a mammal, no."

"They got these little sensy-spots though." Desmond reached over and stroked one of the noodles as he pointed out the dots on their face. "Some of 'em are in different colors, or bigger. Dunno if that means anything."

"Variations. Good for survival."

"Oh, you're such a fucking biologist all the time." Desmond laughed and kissed him. "Oh hey, I thought up some temporary names. Hope that's okay?"

Alex made an interested noise.

Desmond muted the TV, as it had just gone to commercials. "Okay, so this guy is Browny, 'cuz he's got the brownest eyes, or whatever we're calling these sensy-spots. And this guy's Swirly, the guy with the red swirl there, like you pointed out before. And this guy's Red, his sensy-spots have like a red kinda membrane around 'em. And this guy's, uh, Steven."

"Steven?"

"Well he's got a little fin thingy here- " Desmond lifted the noodle up to show it better, "reminds me of a shark, and like, I didn't wanna name 'im Jaws, so, uh, Steven Spielberg directed Jaws, so I went with Steven."

"Huh." Alex petted Steven's little fin, and Steven wriggled in what seemed like contentment. "You're still assuming they're all going to be male, it sounds like."

"Nuh-uh, not all of 'em." Desmond set Steven down and picked up another noodle, a slightly heavier one. "This here's Patty, because she ate a piece of my burger that fell on the floor." Patty opened her mouth and let out a tiny cute burp.

Alex chuckled. "You are ridiculous, you know that?" He leaned in and smooched Desmond on the nose. "Don't ever change."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter dedicated to shetan89, who was the winner of the tumblr drawing to decide what fic I would update next. thanks for all your support, sarah! and thank you to everyone else as well :3

"You're sure they don't need blankets?"

"We're fine, Desmond. Blankets would just soak up the moisture from their outer membranes anyway."

"Hm, yeah, you're right." Desmond adjusted the space heater for the fifty millionth time, tweaking the angle a liiiittle bit more to the left, nudging the power a liiiittle bit more up. "You sure they'll be warm enough in the New York night?"

Alex poked a tendril into the box. "The temperature is good," he said after a moment, retracting it. "And I'll be right here the whole night in case they become distressed." 

Desmond (being human) required sleep. Alex (being a virus) did not require sleep. Alex usually slept alongside Desmond as an act of intimacy and affection and devotion and all that, but now they had these noodleys, and the noodleys showed no signs of falling asleep. So Desmond had requested that Alex stay up and keep watch so that nothing unfavorable happened to them.

One of the noodleys shimmied up to where Alex's tendril had been, and made a soft "ooou" sound. Alex put the tendril back. The noodley went "uuoooh" and coiled loosely around him.

"Aw," said Desmond. "They love their papa."

"Yeah." Alex picked up the water bottle and sprayed a gentle mist over them. "I like the sound of that. Papa."

Desmond nodded, smiling. "Yeah. It fits you, doesn't it?"

"Papa Desmond and Papa Alex."

"Oh, I dunno if I want to be Papa. Maybe I'll be Dad Desmond. Ehmm. Papa Desmond? Dad Desmond? Hm." Desmond shrugged. "I'll sleep on it." He gave Alex a little hug and smooched him right by the ear.

Alex purred.

"You all have a nice night," Desmond said, and he took his pills and went off to bed.

Alex sat down by the box. "So."

The noodleys wriggled, as they had been doing for hours.

Alex sprayed them again.

They settled down a bit.

Alex got his tablet out and snapped a photo of them. "Ah. Memories." He made sure the picture saved to the Assassins' secure cloud. _Our children. So amazing. So wonderful. Such marvels of biology._ He took a few more photos, and then laid down and started playing Word Bagel to pass the time.

Oh, but a mere four minutes later, the noodleys started to make [a shrill noise!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR0sO8mYuVU)

Alex nearly dropped his damn Kindle! "Ah, what do you want, what do you need?"

The noodleys quieted the instant he started talking.

"What do you need?" he asked again.

A couple of them made "oou" sounds again.

"I don't know what 'oou' means." Alex put his arms into the box. _When they were being born, they gave me some knowledge, told me they needed moisture, needed Desmond's scent. Maybe they could communicate again for what they need now._

The noodleys crawled over his hands.

Alex waited for some information to pop into his head.

He waited a couple minutes.

The noodleys began buzzing, and the buzzing turned into the shrill noise of unhappiness again.

"What the goddamn do you want?" Alex muttered at them.

Again, they stopped shrilling when he spoke.

Alex's mind churned. "You... you just don't like when it's quiet. Ohh." A tiny smile budded across his face. "Of course. Developing children need to have stimuli." Alex himself had sprung into sentience with the full mental functionality of the geneticist that created him, but these offspring weren't so lucky. They needed to learn. Alex had seen those posters around town, PSAs about how important it was to read to your kids.

"Yes, yes," he said, grabbing his tablet again. "We need to read to you. Hm. I... don't have any books on this tablet. Wait, this should work." He tapped the _Database_ icon, bringing up the app Rebecca had designed to compile all their Assassin dossiers together. "Uh. Hum." He tapped the _Random_ button, and a few seconds later a database entry was loaded, topped with a photo of a pale elderly man. "All right. Adriano Maestranzi, October 9 1918 to November 30 2012, was a member of the Italian Brotherhood of Assassins who led a cell in Florence, Italy. Born into the Brotherhood, Adriano showed leadership skills from a young age..."

* * *

"Following their arrest, the surviving Assassins were transported to Sevilla, where they were denounced as heretics and sentenced to be burned at the stake by Torquemada. In the-"

"Morning, Alex."

Alex set the tablet down. "Morning? Oh. Time flies."

"Yup." Carrying a cup of coffee, Desmond yawned and blinked a few times at the box. "How's they doing?"

"Good, good. I read them some stuff because they get antsy if they're not stimulated."

"Assassin database isn't exactly _Goodnight Moon_ , but eh, if it works it works."

"They're developing limbs, did you notice?"

"Wow really?"

"Just little prototype limbs, but limbs nonetheless." Alex plucked one from the box to hold up and show Desmond. "See?"

Desmond rubbed his eye and leaned in for a closer look. The noodley had little budding bits, the size of a baby's hand, coming off the sides near the front end. "Wow. Neat-o-rino." He poked the noodley's face. "Boop."

The noodley wiggled in response.

Desmond smiled sleepily and went to get his breakfast. "You want cereal, Alex? We got those oat bran loops you like."

"I'm good."

"For sure?" Desmond called. "How about ham sausage? You did just give birth yesterday, so you need to replenish-"

"Des shut up," Alex interrupted. He left the noodleys alone for a moment and went to glare through the kitchen door at Desmond. "I was much more energy-efficient than humans are. With your idiotic pelvic-outlet births that take dozens of hours, inflict super trauma to the genitals, leave the host hemorrhaging for-"

"Uch! Dude can you not say 'host' please?"

"What's wrong with 'host'?" Alex leaned on the doorframe. "We could say 'pregnant person' but that's so many syllables."

Desmond groaned and slumped his face onto the newspaper. "Forget it, just go back to watching them." It was too early in the morning to have a discussion with Alex The Autistic Scientist Virus about how to choose words that weren't simply Technically Correct but also Not Creepy. Plus, somehow "pregnant person" was too many syllables, yet he said "hemorrhaging" instead of "bleeding"? Alex's mind worked in ways Desmond couldn't fathom.

* * *

"Wait, are we missing some?"

"No this is all of them."

"Didn't we have twenty?"

"We _did_ , but there was consuming in the night."

"Shit, Alex, and you just let that happen?!"

"Yeah, why not?"

"Because they're our kids, we're supposed to protect them!"

"This is how they grow and develop."

"By _killing and eating_ each other?"

"Yes!" Alex snapped. "Did you forget from yesterday?!"

"I don't like it," Desmond said, shaking his head. He knelt down by the box and took inventory of the remaining noodleys. "Browny... Red... Steven... Crungus..."

Alex shook. "You named one 'Crungus'?"

"I dunno, he looks like a memelord. Like that lizard in [the video, from tumblr."](https://trashy-shipper.tumblr.com/post/170635728127/flovvright-gaygothur-thedeadlymilkmen)

"You'll have to be a fuckload more specific, Des."

"Hold on, m'still counting which of our _babies_ haven't gotten fucking _cannibalized_." Desmond scooted each one to the end of the box as he muttered under his breath.

Alex shook his head. "Crungus. Can't fucking believe you. If he reminded you of tumblr why not name him something at least a little normal, like _Hamilton_ or _Despacito_ or _Bode_? _Tide-Pod_ , even."

"You think Tide-Pod is a more normal name than Crungus?"

Alex shrugged with a grunt. "We could say Tidey for short. What the hell we gonna shorten Crungus to?"

"Crun-chan?"

"Oh my god." Alex turned and put his head on the wall.

Desmond finished counting the noodleys. "Kay, we got eight left. Patty, Browney, Swirly, Crungus, Red, Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Steven." He shot a grin at Alex. "How's that for tumblr naming, huh?"

"You named them after that show?"

Desmond snorted a laugh. "I was a little rushed. Didn't have nine months to plan out names like most parents do." He pointed to Garnet. "Besides, look, she's got three eyes, and she's kinda beefier than the others, so Garnet fits her pretty good!" He pointed to Amethyst. "And she's always eating whenever I see her, so- woah!" He jerked back his hand.

Alex glanced at the box. What had scared Desmond was that Amethyst had pounced suddenly on the skinniest noodley.

"Hey stop! You get offa Pearl!" Desmond grabbed Amethyst's rear end and tried to tug her away from her sibling.

However, Amethyst had four little limb-buds out, and each one had three suckers on the ventral side; thus she had a damn good hold on Pearl. Both the noodleys made a shrill gurgle, like a slightly muffled cat fight, if cat fights took place underwater. Amethyst's body flexed and squirmed and Desmond dropped her in shock. "Fuck!" He shook his hands out like one does right after slamming their finger in a door. "She fucking zapped me, damn!"

"Good adaptation," Alex said. "I'm weakened by electricity. They could take me down someday."

"And that doesn't freak you out?"

"Well as long as I'm a good papa, they won't _want_ to take me down. If I ever start to, like, feel disconnected from human society and turn into an evil villain virus, it'd be good if I wasn't invincible."

"What the fuck are you talking about, why would you turn into a villain?"

"Oh Dana had this bad dream one time, like there was another outbreak and I caused it on purpose. Except it was called Redlight not Blacklight. And she said I called her Athena for some re-"

Desmond had grabbed some rubber gloves from the laundry room while Alex was talking. "Can you shut up about the stupid dream and help me with this? Our kids are eating each other!" He dashed back to the box and reached in and grabbed Amethyst again. "Okay, gotcha, you troublemaker! Alex, is Pearl okay?"

Alex looked in the box.

"She's kinda skinny, and got this like, pinkish stripe-"

"Pearl's not there, Des. Pearl's inside Amethyst."

Desmond turned pale and took another look at Amethyst. Sure enough, she was bigger than she'd been two minutes ago. And she was changing color slightly, and growing a goddamn third set of limbs. "My god." He set Amethyst down in Alex's arms. "Okay. I give up. Let the kids consume each other," he sighed, and flopped into the rocking chair.

"Desmond, it's- it's how my virus works," Alex tried to explain. "They're doing it a bit differently than I do, but it's still- They're taking in new DNA and adapting it to their needs, discarding what doesn't work."

Desmond sighed again, loudly. "I guess I'm just old-fashioned for wanting _all_ my kids to live."

Alex came over and set Amethyst on Desmond's lap.

"Aah!"

"Don't be scared. They're your offspring."

"She shocked me! She _consumed_ her sister!"

"Yes, well... what if you think of it as fusion instead of consuming?"

Desmond facepalmed. "So you're saying this is _Opal_ now, not Amethyst?"

Alex shrugged. "I don't watch that show as much as you do."

Opal made a cute little noise and nuzzled her face into Desmond's tummy.

Desmond exhaled in defeat and ran a hand down her back.


End file.
